


you've haunted me all my life

by jonphaedrus



Category: Tales of Berseria, Tales of Zestiria
Genre: F/F, Immortality, Oral History, POV First Person, Post-Canon, Story within a Story, historical revisionism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:28:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23742298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: History is written by the victors. What, then, is truth?Truth is what the victors tell themselves so that they can sleep at night.
Relationships: Velvet Crowe/Magilou
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50





	you've haunted me all my life

**Author's Note:**

> [ _you've haunted me all my life_ ](https://youtu.be/0AKCne5vvaQ)   
>  _through endless days and countless nights_   
>  _there was a storm when I was just a kid_   
>  _stripped the last code of innocence_

History is written by the victors. What, then, is truth?

Truth is what the victors tell themselves so that they can sleep at night.

Here is some history: the first Shepherd was a man named Artorius Collbrande. He led the Abbey during one of its darkest hours, helping to end the spread of the Daemonblight through Midgand. He eventually challenged the Lord of Calamity to single combat, and drew upon the powers of Innominat, the Fifth Empyrean, to seal her away. However, when even Innominat was not strong enough, Artorius gave his life to create the seal.

Here is a truth: Artorius Collbrande was a human. A selfish, despairing human, who believed that the way to cure the world was to rid it of what made humans _human_. He hurt a little girl, who grew up into an angry woman, and she got her revenge. She gave her life willingly to seal away Innominat, and perhaps she found a measure of peace in it.

Here is _my_ truth: I traded truth for life. As long as I can lie, I can live. And what is history if not pretty lies, made prettier so we can live with ourselves for what we’ve done?

Here is some history: the second Shepherd was a woman named Eleanor Hume, who followed in her mentor’s footsteps. Without the powers of Innominat, she could not suppress the Daemonblight. Instead, she would purge chaos and malevolence from parts of the world that were still struggling with the impacts of the upheavals during her lifetime, bringing peace to cities and cleansing monsters from forests.

While, historically, she was much less important to the development of Midgand than Artorius Collbrande, Eleanor Hume has often been called the Shepherd of Peace. She completed the work Shepherd Artorius began, and secured a generation of prosperity for her flock. It was her worship of Maotelus that eventually led to his elevation into the position of the fifth Empyrean, and the later practices of Shepherd selection to help purify the world, rather than the individual.

Here is a truth: some years afterward, I met the Second Shepherd. We crossed paths in a little village out in Endgand, and when I saw her again, she looked raw and tired in a way that reminded me of myself when I was her age. She smiled at me when we met, but it didn’t reach her hollow eyes.

“I’ve heard,” she told me, “That you’re a historian now.”

“I’ve heard,” I told her, “That you’re the Shepherd now.”

She looked small and scared. Lost, alone, fighting a tide that would sooner or later pull her out to sea. I could have thrown her a line, towed her back to shore. If I had, she could have taken it.

Neither of us had changed as much as that. So I pretended I'd never said it.

“Something like that, I guess. Seeing how it suits me. Ever since people stopped being able to see Bienfu, Magilou’s Menagerie gigs have really dried up. Gotta pay the bills with something, you know how it is.” Eleanor laughed. “Besides, someone has to write it all down.” How many times would we have been screwed without some old record, even if it didn’t tell the truth? “Eleanor Hume—the Shepherd, keeper of the peace of Midgand.” I passed my hand through the air, as if sketching a banner.

“Please stop,” Eleanor whispered.

I stopped. I stopped, and hugged her.

I never saw her again, but I like to believe that if such a thing is possible, she died happy.

Here is some history: a rougarou is a specific type of daemon that takes its name from a particularly well-known specimen that was hunted during the Era of Asgard.

Rokurou Rangetsu was the last member of the Rangetsu family, an accomplished swordsman and hunter who made his living taking bounties. The bigger, the better. He was a yaksha, a battle-daemon, and in the end, he killed one of his employers for sending him on a runaround. That employer was a Duke of some standing, and his murder led to a manhunt. Eventually, Rokurou Rangetsu was cornered in a small canyon by a force of two-hundred soldiers, farmers, and ex-mercenaries.

Rokurou, who killed all but one, as a _message._

Here is the truth: in the end, Rokurou asked for a ride across the ocean, in hopes he’d find a worthy opponent at last. He was never seen again.

I never said goodbye.

Here is some history: the Lord of Calamity overcame the combined strengths of Innominat and Artorius, and struck down them both. She would have eaten them, too, becoming stronger than a god, had Squire Eleanor not taken up Shepherd Artorius’ blade and held her off just long enough for Artorius to give Innominat his body as a physical vessel.

Together, they became a new, stronger Empyrean: Maotelus. Maotelus purified the Lord of Calamity, and she begged for their blessing, offering herself to purify the world. Then Maotelus fell into a deep sleep, resting from blessing the planet and ending the Daemonblight.

Here is a truth: no matter how many times I did it, visiting Maotelus made me sick.

“Oh great Maotelus, accept this offering from I, but a humble worshipper praying for your blessing of purification. I bow—nay, kneel—nay, _prostrate_ myself before you, if you will but turn your eyes upon me, lower than low as I am.”

“Hello, Magilou.”

Whenever he spoke, it was Laphicet’s young voice coming out of Maotelus’ old body, the platinum dragon benevolence on high reigning in judgment over the world below. But it still sounded like the little boy who I’d known a lifetime before, who had hidden behind my skirt on more than one occasion. Not a god.

He looked so lonely and lost, up here on the cracking, fading grandeur of the Empyrean’s Throne. I’d heard it called by a new name, the last century: Artorius’ Throne.

“Howdy, Maotelus.” I doffed my hat for him. It was looking a little tattered today. It was time to get a new one. “What’s happening in the world of Empyreans these days?”

“Oh, you know.”

I didn’t know, and I did. The same thing was happening as was always happening. The world was full of malevolence. Sometimes, maybe every other generation or so, a Shepherd would come along and for a handful of years, _Maotelus_ would be full of malevolence. And then the Shepherd would die, and the world would go back to the way that it had been.

He’d get a little older every time. A little paler. A little _thinner_ at the edges. A little. A little. A little.

A little further away from us, and a little closer to Velvet, wherever she was.

Here is some history: _mayvin_ isn’t a name. It’s a word in Old Avarost, and comes from the root of _mēiwē._ Like all Old Avarost, it has meanings every which way you turn it, but the most common is “life of promise.” It was a title originally given to those who took an oath for a purpose greater than themselves, an oath that would span multiple generations. In a name, it becomes “power of promise.” When you put it with death, it becomes “promise of death”. Promises. Oaths. Reasons for them.

Here is a truth: nobody takes oaths for non-selfish reasons. In the end, it always gives you something you want, and you lose something you probably never cared about in the first place.

After all, if you’d cared about it enough to not sell your soul for it, you’d never have been willing to lose it in the first place.

Here is some history: Van Aifread was a real person, once upon a time. He sailed the world, circumnavigating the continent, finding treasures terrifying and powerful both. He lived nearly three hundred years, and never seemed to age a day, and may have even been a Malak, a Seraph with a physical form.

Eventually, though, one too many mutinies and fights wrecked his boat, and he was left adrift, marooned on the wreckage of his once-great sailing vessel. His bones washed ashore a decade later, still dressed in the tattered sea-stained rags of his once-great pirate coat. His boat, though, roved the waters just out of reach of fishing vessels for generations to come.

They say if you look out on moonless nights, you can still see it, in the shadows under the water, the old sails tattered to the shape of dragon’s wings.

Here is a truth: nobody knows how or when Eizen became a dragon.

We probably never will.

Here is some history: the Lord of Calamity is a hellion whose malevolence is so powerful that she cannot be killed. No matter how many Shepherds there are, they can only force her back for a time and buy the world another generation of peace. It is up to us, the everyday humans, to do better at protecting the world by being peaceful and kind to one another. Eventually, perhaps, we will as a race be able to push her back for good. Until then, we must suffer, and remember the seraphim, and pray for our deliverance one Shepherd at a time.

Here is a truth: once upon a time, there was a little girl. One awful night, her sister slipped and fell, and her brother’s heart broke. Another awful night, her brother looked to her and said _I was never your brother’s keeper_.

There never was a Lord of Calamity, and there never will be. There will just be people who have been hurt one too many times, and can only hurt others.

Here is a truth: once upon a time, the Lord of Calamity killed the Shepherd, and he deserved it.

Here is a truth: there has never been a Shepherd. There have only been people who have believed they knew how to do what was best for the world. Some of the have been right. Some of them have been wrong. 

Some of them have never been their brothers keepers.

Here is some history: the Era of Asgard never ended, it only changed as the knowledge of the previous generations fell out of use.

Here is some history: the Era of Asgard never began, because Claudin Asgard was a single man, and one who believed he knew more than he did.

Here is a truth: Claudin Asgard was too kind, and the world he shaped in that kindness was too cruel. An irony.

Here is a truth: sin is hereditary. Just like you can have your father’s hair and your mother’s eyes, so too can you carry their sorrows. It passes with blood. It passes with belief, too.

Our world is the sum of those who have died to make it.

Here is _my_ truth: I miss you, Velvet.


End file.
